The present invention is directed to a method for storing data describing the status of a computer given a serious malfunction, the data being subsequently utilized for error analysis and, potentially, elimination thereof. Such serious malfunctions can be the result of, for example, by software or hardware errors and then prevent continued normal operation or, respectively, can also potentially lead to an overall computer crash. In general, no status data is available that represents the computer status immediately before and during the malfunction. The possibility of localizing the cause of the crash and the error is therefore generally lacking.
In addition some computer units must be constantly available in real-time operation, for example given digital telephone switching systems. After a crash, such a computer is normally immediately automatically restarted, whereby the main memory is also partially reformatted. Another problem is also that no possibility for error searching remains due to the immediate restarting of the computer. It is therefore extremely difficult to analyze and eliminate the cause of the crash, that is, hardware or software errors.
For providing computer status information immediately before a serious malfunction, the computer status during normal operation must be constantly logged in order to be able to analyze the cause of the error after a serious malfunction. For dynamic reasons, however, such data cannot be immediately externally secured, for example on a hard disk, since the performance of the computer would be too degraded. Such data would apt to be secured periodically or when a specific volume is reached, that is, at greater time intervals. Given the occurrence of a serious malfunction that leads to a restart of the computer, however, the main memory is then also often reformatted, so that the status information is overwritten. However, the status information for the critical time span, namely for the time span between the last securing time and the time of the malfunction, is lacking, so that the error analysis can only be based on incomplete data material.